Funny, I just posted a shorter and less-specific discussion post for largely the same reason—my perception that LW is abandoning addressing these problems, in favor of rationality techniques.
My impression is that that was Eliezer’s intention from the start. And, I love the idea of rationality bootcamp.
Michael Vassar has put a lot more thought into what SIAI should do now than I have, and I’m not going to disagree with him. Addressing this requires a financial analysis, not just picking what you think is the biggest problem and going straight at it. My impression is that SIAI operates like a college, which pays for operating expenses (neglecting grants and donations) by taking in a large number of undergraduates, in order to fund the work of grad students and professors.
I think LW is not going to be the place where we tackle these problems. That place does not yet exist. And I think LW should not be the place where we tackle these problems. It has already converged on a strong local attractor of opinion which it cannot escape from. It is too strongly-affiliated with a small number of people with largely similar viewpoints. We need some random restarts.
(I think the last 3 paragraphs of OP should be a separate post; their position at the conclusion of the post distracts greatly from the focus of the first part.)
Funny, I just posted a shorter and less-specific discussion post for largely the same reason—my perception that LW is abandoning addressing these problems, in favor of rationality techniques.
My impression is that that was Eliezer’s intention from the start. And, I love the idea of rationality bootcamp.
Michael Vassar has put a lot more thought into what SIAI should do now than I have, and I’m not going to disagree with him. Addressing this requires a financial analysis, not just picking what you think is the biggest problem and going straight at it. My impression is that SIAI operates like a college, which pays for operating expenses (neglecting grants and donations) by taking in a large number of undergraduates, in order to fund the work of grad students and professors.
I think LW is not going to be the place where we tackle these problems. That place does not yet exist. And I think LW should not be the place where we tackle these problems. It has already converged on a strong local attractor of opinion which it cannot escape from. It is too strongly-affiliated with a small number of people with largely similar viewpoints. We need some random restarts.
(I think the last 3 paragraphs of OP should be a separate post; their position at the conclusion of the post distracts greatly from the focus of the first part.)